Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a detective in Bangkok, is assigned to find the schemers who collect human organs and extort thousands from the sick in desperate need.

He begins his search by tracking down sources in the exotic world of low-lit bars where women’s bodies are sold as casually as a drink.

He is comfortable in this milieu. After all, his mother, a former prostitute, runs such an establishment. And his lover is a prostitute who is now writing her dissertation on the profession, his assistant is a transsexual, and his key suspects are oversexed twins.

Eventually, Sonchai and a Hong Kong detective zero in on Vulture Peak, a fancy establishment in Phuket, a town infamous for its pleasure trade.

There lies the key to a multicountry network that runs the organ-trafficking business.

Our detective is a cynical chap. So as he tells this intricate and surprisingly engaging story, he tosses in riffs about prostitution, the pervasive corruption among political, military and law enforcement personnel, drugs, capitalism and tourists. (Worthy observations, but they delay the unraveling of the mystery).

Given the bizarre world that Sonchai inhabits, the culprits he eventually tracks down are appropriately weird.

But in the end, there is this universal reality: “guanxi” (connections).